Saving an HIH Acoustic Guitar

It just warms the cockles of my heart whenever a guitar is loved and regarded as a family member. One sweaty morning in the Age of Covid, a pleasant young man and his mom brought in two guitars in need of repairs: an HIH acoustic and a Yamaha C-80 classical. The HIH was his dad's, while the C-80 was a recent yard sale acquisition. As dad was too busy to bring in the guitars himself, mom and son decided to jointly shoulder the task. I found that very touching. Although keeping costs down was a major consideration (as always); both of them politely requested that I do my best as the HIH had "been in the family" for a long time. 

The HIH was dusty and grimy, clearly well-used; and had on five rusty strings. The major issue was, however, the unsightly crack between the neck heel and the body. In effect, the neck heel had completely separated from the body and was just held on by the fretboard. This really surprised me until I forced the crack open and found that only one measly wooden dowel and glue had been used to "join" the neck to the body. No siree, it would have cost too much to fashion a dovetail joint, so this is the path HIH chose. Way to go, HIH! To minimize cost, I suggested that the neck heel be glued back into place with Titebond III and the repaired area touched up; no refinishing would be done. They agreed, and so I proceeded with the task at hand.

The damaged area was thoroughly cleaned of any loose debris, following which Titebond III was liberally applied to surfaces to be reattached. Clamps were then applied, and any glue squeeze-out promptly wiped off with a damp rag. Two bricks in a bag were tied onto the middle of the neck with nylon rope. This was to provide sufficient downward pressure to the neck heel. The clamps and bricks were left on for some 24 hours to give the Titebond III sufficient time to cure.

Once the clamps had been removed, it was time to clean up any dried glue squeeze-out and make the repaired area presentable. After sanding and leveling this area, a diluted mix of various StewMac ColorTone liquid stains were used to tint exposed areas of wood as best I could. Finally, light coats of Tru-Oil were applied to seal everything nicely. Normally I would have refinished the areas in question; but that would have blown the repair budget out of the water.

That issue having been taken care of, it was time to replace the old grimy tuners. One of the tuner buttons was even missing. After removing the old tuners, the mounting screw holes were plugged with bamboo dowels dipped in glue. These dowels were then trimmed flush, sanded; and each sealed with a drop of super glue.

Now, as the replacement tuner posts would not fit into the old holes, a reamer was used to slowly widen them until they could. New tuner mounting holes were then drilled; and the replacement tuners installed. I must say, the HIH headstock looked a whole lot better with these new tuners.

What was left, then, was to spruce up the fretboard and frets, clean and polish the whole guitar, install a fresh set of strings, tweak the truss rod; and call it a day. Which is exactly what I did, by the way. Thus ended another thrilling episode in the life of a guitar repairman. And what of the Yamaha C-80? Well, that is a subject for another post :) 

RC Stromm Acoustic Guitar Headstock Repair

This acoustic guitar came in a few years ago for a headstock repair. I used a nyatoh backstrap overlay to repair the damage, and it has held up admirably all this while. That was until one of Che'gu Awal's guitar students carelessly dropped it after a private practice session. This time the crack was in a different location and even more severe, which led me to suspect that there was a problem with the wood of the neck itself.

After the back of the headstock and neck was shaved down, I decided to remove wood from both sides of the crack; and glue in rectangular blocks of wood for reinforcement. Upon chiseling out wood to form channels for the wood blocks, my earlier suspicions were confirmed. Wood on either side of the truss rod, especially in the truss rod area; was rotten. So rotten, in fact; that some sections looked as if they'd been eaten by termites.

Once the wood blocks had been glued in, the back of the neck was shaved to accept a backstrap overlay. This time, the backstrap overlay consisted of a "sandwich" of pine and chengal. And instead of bending the overlay, an extra-thick slab of pine was carefully shaped to conform to the profile of the shaved headstock/neck area.

The backstrap overlay was glued in with Titebond III, clamped; and set aside for a week. Once the clamps were off, it was time to trim the overlay to size and reshape it as necessary. As it turned out, most of the chengal ended up being sanded off completely; leaving just two small areas near the end of the headstock and volute. Yes, I added a volute because I believe it adds strength to the weakest areas of the headstock/neck joint.

Following this, the entire back of the neck was sanded down, and refinished in Tru-Oil. About 10-15 coats were put down, with some steel-wooling action going down every three coats or so. The final coat was considerably thinned down with naphtha; and left to cure for about a week. As a finishing touch, Birchwood Casey Gun Stock Wax was applied to the entire back of the neck and headstock; and the area buffed by hand.

This RC Stromm Acoustic Guitar came in at the end of July, and the job was only completed yesterday. This means that it took about five months for this repair, imagine that! I sent the guitar to Che'gu Awal earlier tonight at RF MusicWorks. While he was trying out the guitar, I recorded a short video (with his permission, of course). I've also put together another video that summarizes how this repair was carried out. Here are the videos, then. Do check them out:

RC Stromm Headstock Repair

RC Stromm Acoustic after Neck Repair

With that, I humbly take my leave. Thanks for dropping by. Stay home, stay safe, and God bless :)

 

L. Luthier GA20W Bridge Repair | Part One

Part Two ▶

This rather lovely L. Luthier acoustic guitar is suffering from a lifting rosewood bridge. After taping off the periphery of the bridge, I carefully used a heated spatula to prise it off the soundboard. Once off, I noticed three things. The first was that there was paint stuck to the bottom of the bridge; and paint on the soundboard where there should have been only bare wood. No wonder the bridge had started to lift --- part of it had been glued to paint!

The second was that there was only one rosewood bridge locating pin when there were holes for two. Maybe omitting the second bridge pin saved L. Luthier a cent or two, who knows? Finally, as can be seen in the pic, an insufficient amount of glue had merely been squirted to the bottom of the bridge prior to clamping. No one bothered to spread it evenly for uniform coverage. And they expected it to stay on? Seriously, the bridge gluing department supervisor had better keep a closer watch on what his subordinates are doing.

Well, I've started the ball rolling by scraping off all the paint and glue residue from the bottom of the bridge. I've also sanded the bottom flat, but not entirely smooth; so that the new glue will have something to grab on to. The next step will be prepping the area of the soundboard underneath the bridge. I'll have to scrape it clean until bare wood is exposed, reglue any stray wood slivers; and sand it flat. Not really looking forward to that, I tell you. Stay tuned for Part Two.